Stone on bridge may come to dust

Selectmen last week were urged by a number of Danversport residents to save not only the granite on the Waters Street Bridge, but also the stone sandwiched between the granite.

Cathryn Keefe O’Hare/Danvers Herald

Selectmen last week were urged by a number of Danversport residents to save not only the granite on the Waters Street Bridge, but also the stone sandwiched between the granite.

“The style of the walls matches those at Riverbank,” Ann Marie Ruotolo of Bates Street said, in reference to the Italianate style mansion at the Homes for the Deaf that is slated for renovation (see separate story).

Michael Daley of North Shore Avenue spoke up to say William Penn Hussey, who expanded the mansion in the 1890s, probably built the walls. This means the bridge is older than the late 1920s date ascribed by some town officials, including the Preservation Commission, which backed off the issue.

The bridge has been on the state’s list of bridges needing replacement since 1996, according to the Massachusetts Highway Department Web site. Estimated to cost around $7 million to rebuild, bids have been received and work is slated to begin in spring 2009 on a new bridge much like the one over Endicott Street. Engineers have said the granite is too heavy to incorporate into the design without significantly delaying or halting the project.

Ruotolo and others will accept a compromise to replicate as much as possible — including the granite, the parapets and the stone — on the solid ground leading to the bridge expanse.

The River Committee, through its representative Bill Nicholson, urged the town to save the granite: “We don’t want to hold up the project, but we’d like to have the granite saved.”

Town Archivist Dick Trask said separately that even the iconic Concord Bridge has been replaced about seven times to ensure public safety.

“It would be nice to keep some of the granite, but bridges go through a lot of changes,” he said.

Some of the underpinnings of the Water Street Bridge could date from the 1700s, Trask said.

It was narrower at one point. It had manufacturers housed on it, including the Danvers Iron Works.

“The bridge itself has had a very long and controversial career,” he said, with enthusiasm for the subject. “Barring the slavery issue, that bridge was the most controversial.”

The town even hired John Adams — the John Adams — in 1771 to deal with litigation over the bridge. Port people wanted to rebuild the bridge that had been swept away 20 years earlier in a hurricane, so they would have a quick way to the Salem market for their products.

The rest of the town didn’t want the bridge, because they wanted the commerce traffic, benefiting Danvers and Peabody, which was once part of Danvers.

Because of the rift, the Port became a legal entity within the town from 1772 to 1840. It was called, “The Neck of the Land,” Trask said. The area was exempt from the highway tax and from maintaining streets in Danvers so long as they took care of their own bridge. Residents were still subject to all other taxes and to participating in Town Meeting, but they also had their own District Meeting, Trask said.

The Massachusetts Historical Commission supposedly sent Trask a letter asking him to evaluate the bridge’s historical importance, Trask said. But, he never received such a letter.

“If nothing else, I keep good files,” he said this week.

But, it may have been addressed to the Historical Commission. In the unlikely event he did receive and read such a letter, he would have sent it to the Preservation Commission, “because they are the body that acts.”

The bridge belonged to the town, then to the Neck of the Land for a time. It was privately owned, too, and Trask isn’t sure who owns the granite now.

“The parapets are nice,” he said. “They’re much nicer than what’s at the Szypko Bridge” (near Sam and Joe’s in the Port).